Saturday, June 20, 2009

LMS AGM and Pontifical Mass in Westminster Cathedral

The LMS AGM was today.This was followed by lunch for the Committee and local LMS Representatives (and some guests), and a Pontifical High Mass in Westminster Cathedral celebrated by Bishop Arnold. Fr Andrew Wadsworth, a long-standing friend of the LMS who is soon to depart for the United States to work for ICEL, was Assistant Priest; Fr Martin Edwards, who was the guest speaker at the AGM, was subdeacon; the deacon was the Rev Mr Ian McDole, a deacon. The Westminster choir sang a Duruflé Mass.There are many more photos here.

Worth noting in the last two pictures is the absence, not only of the temporary altar, but of the platform which it used to sit on. The platform used to stay even when the temporay altar was removed for the LMS's two annual Solemn Masses in the Cathedral. It hid the middle part of the bottom three marble steps (the uncarpeted ones) to create a larger space at that level. It has now gone forever, because Archbishop Nichols has permanently ejected the temporary altar. Novus Ordo Masses now use the high altar, which can be used without difficulty from both sides - as the installation Mass showed. You see the layout more clearly here, in a photo taken after Mass today ended.